According to a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Colorado, large wildfires are no more likely in forests hit by beetle infestation than in those that are healthy.

To conduct the study, which has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers used federal maps. During the study, they covered the areas of western forests that were burned by wildfire three times. They also tried to figure out which areas of the location had been infested by pine beetles. According to the researchers, the areas with beetle-kill accounted for about 46% of the total region burned.

Sarah Hart, a researcher from the University of Colorado and lead author of the study, said, "The bottom line is that forests infested by the mountain pine beetle are not more likely to burn at a regional scale. We found that alterations in the forest infested by the mountain pine beetle are not as important in fires as overriding drivers like climate and topography".

Some previous studies took a more regional approach to examine the effects of infestations on wildfires, while researchers from the University of Colorado covered the entire western United States from Alaska to the Southwest. They examined the regions through ground, aircraft and satellite data and then create maps of wildfire burns.

According to the researchers, a persistent drought in the West has created increased fire danger. According to Hart, the data that the researchers have gathered could be used for more intelligent public-land management. The national 2014 Farm Bill had allocated about $200 million to reduce risks of wildfire due to insect outbreak and disease. As per the researcher, the money should be invested in the right place.

If the money is spent on increasing the safety of firefighters or protecting houses and other places at risk of burning from forest fires, it will make sense, Hart added.